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my future apprentices

09-28-2012, 09:44 AM

i had a call at a pre school yesterday that i visit a few times a year. usually i show up at the end of day when the kids are not in class, but outside in the playground.

they had a stoppage in the new laundry room they just completed. the contractor couldn't clear it and i was referred to come and clean it. after 3 attempts of snaking from the sink and the cable going up the vent, i grabbed my k-50 and headed to the roof.

within minutes all the kids were climbing up on the playground equipment to get a closer look. the boys climbed the spider web and the girls the play house.

unless we continue to provide shop classes in the future, there will not be an interest in the trades. maybe i can go from school to school to spark their interest.

I like the idea of shop classes and trade schools. There are plenty of kids who are better with their hands and minds applying themselves to the trades, than wasting years in college only to either not find a job or be unfulfilled. Our society also needs skilled labor, tradespeople. college is not the only way to go!

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i started when i was 12 with my uncle. from that point on i was hooked and geared myself that i was going into the trades after high school. even though i finished in the top 5% of my high school class, i was probably 1 of a handful that didn't go to college. but i did go through a 4 year union apprenticeship with 4 years of school and on the job training. but this time i finished at the top of my class

rick.

phoebe it is

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I always joke to my guys on the job site when we have been manually digging and they look tired "See you should have listened and stayed in School then you wouldn't be doing this" They always smile and pick up the pace again.

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I always joke to my guys on the job site when we have been manually digging and they look tired "See you should have listened and stayed in School then you wouldn't be doing this" They always smile and pick up the pace again.

You're right, but maybe not in the way you intended, they wouldn't be digging, they might not be working at all.

The worse thing this country did was to try to push everyone into college. We've gone 3 generations pushing that crap, and all it's done is reduce us to a society that can't change a tire or hang a door, we have to call someone else. We are Regans' "service economy", his dream has come true. And it is the root of our doom.

Frank, was that gloomey enough for ya?

"When we build let us think we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work that our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone upon stone, that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! This our fathers did for us."
John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

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Nice picture Rick. I have seen it too when I was working on a water heater and the kids from the daycare watched from the playground. Very curious little one's. "What's he doing? Hey whatcha' doing?!"

Sadly none of them will be encouraged to work in any trade. All parents consider it an "alternative" 'cause their kid "couldn't do better."

That will not be changed in our generation either.

Bob, I hope it can be changed in our generation and I think it is already happening. I know a couple tradesmen who have their college age sons working with them and learning the trade. The job market for college graduates is not great, and the expense of college is great. I think some of these young people are realizing they have a skilled, "employed" individual who is earning a good living, willing to teach them a trade that will offer them the same. Seems like a real good deal to me. I know that for many years it was more common to push your kids to "do better", but is that really better? The linemen I worked with called the sledge hammer, breaking bar, pick and shovel, "the tools of ignorance" sarcastically. Hey we were out in the fresh air, working hard, enjoying comradery and making money. Keep your suit and tie!

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Rick, its interesting you posted this today, as one of my friends (a police officer) has two kids that want to work with their hands. He and his wife both support what they are doing.

On the weekend at coffee he told me that his soon to be 19yr old daughter decided not to go to university but just took a job as a carpenters assistant at a local cabinet shop. Over the summer she was working for a landscaper laying sod, hauling patio blocks etc.

Her slightly older brother at the age of 17 decided that he wanted to become a journeyman electrician and was in the final year of apprenticeship before getting into a serious motocross accident this summer that left him with a brain injury that is still being treated 4 months after the accident. Not sure if he will ever go back to the trade.

What I found interesting is that neither of them ever showed any interest in tools etc. as young kids, when their dad and I ever did anything around their house.

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I have always tried to "sneak" in to fix a toilet or fixture. And it never fails one kid would see me and yell out loud WHAT IS THAT MAN DOING? And that got all the other kids swarming my way. The teachers would say "alright kids leave the man alone, please take your seats". (thank God for teachers).I never mastered the art of sneaking a K-50 and a ladder or worst yet, a K-1500 in the playground.

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Rick, I like what you have done with your life. You are a skilled tradesman in your profession, went to the college of hard knocks, freely gives out advice and is knowledgeable in many fields. Your dedication to these boards and the many people you have helped is unprecedented. I salute you!

i started when i was 12 with my uncle. from that point on i was hooked and geared myself that i was going into the trades after high school. even though i finished in the top 5% of my high school class, i was probably 1 of a handful that didn't go to college. but i did go through a 4 year union apprenticeship with 4 years of school and on the job training. but this time i finished at the top of my class

rick.

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I am of this new generation you all speak of when i was younger i didn't really see myself working on anything and didn't us much tools. A little older i started to get into it and when i turned 14 I was really into it 2 years before i got into the marine corp i worked at a manufacturing plant building bayliner boats . Now i got to college at every college i looked at in a 100 mile radius there is a waiting list for skilled trades i had to put myself on the list and try to get the required electives out of the way so i could understand and focus more on the trade portion of school(which helped ). You guys are right most people don't even know a ball peen hammer from a claw hammer but that is among the things they teach these days. I find that my current generation was doomed but the recession helped out america in a way of people having to learn things in order to afford grocerys.

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I like the idea of shop classes and trade schools. There are plenty of kids who are better with their hands and minds applying themselves to the trades, than wasting years in college only to either not find a job or be unfulfilled. Our society also needs skilled labor, tradespeople. college is not the only way to go!

exactly I wanted to go on to college for a degree in tech. but i would have had to take a bunch of crap classes that had nothing to do with technology
and at my age i wasnt going to waste 3 or 4 years of my life on politics, and the performing arts and other rubbish

shooting the s*** is a lot more fun when you use hollow points (much more splatter)